UK Student Loans.

The media and politicans have been talking about the level of student debt.
No one can explain properly the level of debt.

Student loan debt in the UK has risen to more than £100bn for the first time, underlining the rising costs young people face in order to get a university education

The reason for the ballon in debt is simple. The rise in student debt has been driven partly by rules introduced in 2012, allowing universities in England to charge up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees
Before 2012, university fees were much lower.

So it began:-
Student loans first became part of the student support package in 1990/91. In that year students could take out a maximum of £420, and then it started to climb on the amount that could be borrowed.
Initially the loans were for living costs, as student tuition fees were paid by the local authorities.
Then over the years changes were made to stop local authorities paying the fees and loans were introduced to pay for the tuition fees, it was in 2006/07 when new students attending institutions in England and Northern Ireland could be charged variable fees of up to £3,000, it was New lending from 2006/07 was subject to a 25-year maximum term after which they are written off.
Then the fees start to rise.

At the end of 2016-17 total publicly owned debt for English students and EU students studying in England was £89.3 billion.

The Government has projected that the outstanding cash value of publicly owned student debt in England will increase to around £100 billion in 2016-17, £500 billion in the mid-2030s and £1,000 billion (£1 trillion) in the late 2040s. The real (2014-15) value is expected to exceed £100 billion around 2018, £200 billion in the late 2020s and stabilize around £300 billion by the middle of this century. These figures assume that fee increase in line with inflation from 2016.

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01079/SN01079.pdf

The numbers are staggering.